A Critical Analysis of the Legislative Process in Nigeria

Abstract

Introduction

The phrase "Legislative Process" has both a restrictive and expansive connotation. In its restrictive sense it may be limited to the process which the legislature must go through before it can enact policy proposals into laws or statutes. In this sense it covers the various stages from the formulation of concrete proposals be they political, social, economic, cultural or otherwise to the finished product which is the statute.

In the expansive sense it could be better reclassified as the process or processes of the Legislature. This meaning depicts the ways of the legislature, the powers of the legislature in its entirety and not just its power as it relates to the law making process. Surely the law making power is relevant and important but it is only one of the constituent powers albeit perhaps a very important constituent. The expanded connotation will form focus of this work.

It is important to recognise and accept the fact that under the Constitution, Government is shared and dominated by two important arms — the Executive and the Legislative. The third arm which in the context of this Paper is best described as the third estate — the Judiciary — is as it were a sleeping but very important arm. The Executive and the Legislature are by nature loud and aggressive. They enjoy the limelight. It is natural because they came in through loudness sometimes empty but sometimes logistical, articulate and well reasoned. The Judiciary by their training shorn public ovation, rarely seen but often heard through powerful and innovating judgements. Even when they are changing accepted norms through judicial legislating they do this unobtrusively. Their manner is as sober as their conservative mode of dressing. But they are powerful or capable of being so.

The Judiciary, the custodian of our morals and oracles of our ethics and culture are better recognised as an important estate of the realm but not as an active and aggressive arm. To this extent therefore it is not the intention to discuss them as an arm of government as such in the paper.